ERP Solutions (Implementation & Success Rate)

Little about ERP….

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Such a hot term it is ERP but there is lot which is required to dig out about this hottest trend of the market. Normally ERP reflects software solutions in the market which can full fill all the needs of an organization by using a centralized database concept. ERP solutions are actually replacing the small software which are departmental based inside any organization like any medium to large scale organization do has some departments like Human Resource , Finance & Accounts , Procurement & Inventory so contrast to ERP there might be serving three different software applications for three different departments but by using ERP solution all these departmental needs can be fulfilled by this single ERP product provided that, that ERP solution is capable and flexible enough to cater all the requirements.

Some Popular ERP Solutions

SAP
Oracle E-Business Suite
Compiere (Open Source)

SAP (http://www.sap.com) is probably the best ERP solutions among all the ERP solutions in the market but don’t forget its competitor Oracle which is getting mature rapidly. There is lot u can find about SAP features on their official website but may be you don’t know that SAP is also using Oracle database to store its all kind of data, which in return give a end user a blend of two very mature products. There is no doubt about the monopoly of oracle as long as the databases are concerned and SAP is solid and mature ERP application so combination of both products gives ultimate Technical blend and probably this is one of the reason which makes SAP best among all.

Oracle ERP E-Business Suite (http://www.oracle.com) is another ERP solution in the market which is getting mature as its age is lot less then SAP. In my personal experience the main disadvantage of this ERP product is that it is not user friendly and demands a lot from end user to actually put it in operational. Oracle ERP has no doubt has swept out SAP from the GULF Region and is the most popular ERP product in that region but in rest of world SAP is providing it a tough competition.

Compiere (Open Source http://www.compiere.com) is probably the most matured ERP solution among all open source ERP products. Its Java based and can support database like Oracle and MySql. You can find it as free to download from http://sourceforge.net/ which is probably the largest repository of open source projects and is really serving the open source community in a great way. Compiere team also offer paid support to this product.

Why ERP Solutions have 80% Failure Rate…..?
Well this is really interesting topic to debate upon but this is fact that ERP solution got success rate is very low. It does not mean at all that ERP products in the market are not capable enough to cater the needs of such a dynamicity of the organization inside this ultra dynamic world. Actually it is all about the their implementation inside organizations. Implementing an ERP solution is not only a technical and functional stuff but it is really an Art too. As long as the consultants are concerned consultant must be experienced and should have full grip on ERP application modules. An experienced consultant always have sound knowledge of operational issues inside organizations prior and post implementation. Every organization has his own culture so understanding of organizational behavior is the key to successful implementation.
As long as organization end is concerned they must have resource person as representative having prior knowledge of ERP application and operational issues so that consultants coming in organization could not fool them and quality implementation could be guaranteed. Those companies who don’t have such resources are adviced to higher a consultant firm to represent themselves in front of Implementation team.
Failure to follow routines and suggestions always lead toward the failure of ERP implementation. Most of the time consultants are inexperienced and companies don’t have ERP technical resources and they don’t bather about higher any consultancy firm to represent them and make sure the quality implementation of ERP products.

I hope you must have enjoyed this post if you have any questions regarding to my post please feel free to email me at sheeraz_mughal@hotmail.com or leave comments.
Thanks for your time and Enjoy.